A Cup of Tea
- A unique compilation of intimate letters written by Osho to his disciples and friends in the beautiful poetry of a mystic:
- "Man goes on dreaming and desiring but basically remains where he is; and in the end nothing but ashes of his dreams and desires are in his hands - and, of course, tears in his eyes." (Osho)
- Talking about mystic saints in Books I Have Loved, Osho mentions:
- "... They are averse to writing. They sing, they speak, they dance, they indicate, but they don't write. To write something is to make it very limited. A word is a limitation; only then can it be a word. If it is unlimited it will be the sky, containing all the stars. That's what a saint's experience is.
- Even I myself have not written anything... just a few letters to those who were very intimate to me, thinking, or perhaps believing, that they will understand. I don't know whether they understood or not. So my book A CUP OF TEA is the only book that can be said to have been written by me. It is a compilation of my letters. Otherwise I have not written anything.", - from Books I Have Loved, ch.9
- translated from
- First 150 letters translated from Hindi: Prem Ke Phool (प्रेम के फूल), rest - original English.
- notes
- Read this book as PDF or create a free account at osho.com to read the book online.
- Later published as part of Osho Books on CD-ROM.
- The first editions have 350 letters, from the 1996 edition there are 365.
- Letters 1 - 150 previously published as Prem Ke Phool (प्रेम के फूल), earlier translated as Flowers of Love:
- New translations from the Hindi by Sw Anand Maitreya
- New English versions by Sw Anand Somendra.
- For the publishing history of each letter, addressees and other info, see A Cup of Tea (sources). Synopsis:
- Letters #151 to 350 had previously been published in other books:
- The Silent Music - 30 letters
- Turning In (letters) - 30 letters
- What Is Meditation? - 45 letters
- The Gateless Gate - 30 letters. Probably all original English, see Talk:The Gateless Gate.
- The Dimensionless Dimension - 35 letters
- The Eternal Message - 30 letters
- From the 1996 edition there are 15 more letters, so 365. The sources of these are unclear (see discussion).
- Letters in this books are slightly edited and names are left out.
- time period of Osho's original talks/writings
- 1962 to 1971 : timeline
- number of discourses/chapters
- 10 (see table of contents)
editions
A Cup of TeaIntimate letters to disciples and friends
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A Cup of Tea
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A Cup of TeaLetters written by Osho to disciples and friends
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A Cup of TeaIntimate letters to disciples and friends
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A Cup of Tea
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A Cup of Tea
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table of contents
edition 1980 chapter titles |
letters | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
event | location | addressee | ||||||
1 | 1962 (letters 1 -- 7) | see sources | ||||||
2 | 1963 (letters 8 -- 13) | see sources | ||||||
3 | 1964 (letters 14 -- 19) | see sources | ||||||
4 | 1965 (letters 20 -- 35) | see sources | ||||||
5 | 1966 (letters 36 -- 43) | see sources | ||||||
6 | 1967 (letter 44) | see sources | ||||||
7 | 1968 (letters 45 -- 51) | see sources | ||||||
8 | 1969 (letters 52 -- 71) | see sources | ||||||
9 | 1970 (letters 72 -- 150) | see sources | ||||||
10 | 1971 (letters 151 -- 350) | see sources |